Hollywood Access to OBL Info Infuriates Reporters

The revelation that the Obama administration provided two Hollywood supporters with unprecedented access to top-secret defense and intelligence information regarding the Osama bin Laden assassination has angered national security insiders, reports Eli Lake at the Daily Beast.

The two people who appear to have gotten the best access last year to this often-classified side of government were Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the Oscar-winning pair who wrote and directed The Hurt Locker, for their forthcoming film about the SEAL Team Six raid that killed Osama bin Laden. At the time of those meetings, the film about what many consider Barack Obama’s finest moment was scheduled for release just a month before the election—potentially providing a huge, free-media coup for the president.

This stands in stark contrast to the access given to reporters, who were restricted to speaking with press handlers, leaving reporters seething.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the special treatment given to the filmmakers “outrageous.”

“If these filmmakers got access that trained national security and military reporters did not, then it’s telling the public: ‘We are not going to allow trained journalists to tell this story. If you want to know what happened, go buy a ticket to a movie,’” she told The Daily Beast in an interview.